Random Thought

As far as I can tell, it's not about finding something/someone to 'complete' you. It's about facing that which you fear most in yourself, and accepting it.

Where In the World Is Leigh?

Where In the World Is Carmen San Diego Leigh?  Ask and you shall receive!  What's that?  You didn't ask, well let's just pretend you did... 

Well, what can I say, it’s been a while cyber world and much has happened since my last entry!  Probably the largest change is that I’m now calling Melbourne, Australia home.  I got restless again and decided it was time to wander the world aimlessly.  Where better to start then a place that’s always been dear to my heart; Australia.

It was a somewhat hard decision as I’ll miss the snowboard season and SUFFER through two summers, but that’s just my burden to bare.  It weighs quite heavily on me as I’m lie on the beach sunbaking under the ozoneless sky.  "WHY ME?” I scream to no one in particular.  A few people look at me but I assure them that I'm an American so I don’t give Canadians a crazy name.  That’s what I’ve decided to claim every time I do something silly.

Here I am though!  Feeling like I’m actually living life for the first time in ages.  When the grey edges of life hit you it’s hard to hold onto anything and give it purpose.  A fake corporate marketing image controls the life we all live now, whispering in our ears from childhood that things equal happiness.  The more I try to fill my life with things and have relationships with social networking sights, the more unfulfilled I feel.  Where are the meaningful relationships, where friends drop everything to be there instead of posting their best on your Wall?  School was boring the shit out of me, subjects filled with nothingness with infinite answers narrowed down to one ‘expert/professors’ opinion.  Where’s the progression, the attempt to find/be unique?  

My journey to understand the human plight begins with the attempt to meet as many of my fellow species as possible.  Australia hit me as a particular bright spot because I’ve always remembered my time here as a child and the amazing neighbors we had.  Always stopping by for a cuppa to catch up.  If those visits taught me anything, it’s that human interaction can not be substituted by technology.  Since Melbourne had somehow missed my previous explorations, my destination was chosen.

So I popped on a plane in October, and here I am.  The creative community is intimidating, but filled with beautiful, kind warm individuals who open their arms to everyone.  It’s been a humbling experience to see what Melbourne is creating at such a high calibre.  Regardless of what they make, I admire these people because they are doing what I dream about doing.  Following your passion without hesitation, although not hiding the struggle behind it.

When I was 16 I worked a part time job in my hometown.  I worked with this guy, which in itself isn’t very eventful, but he said something to me that’s stayed with me throughout the years.  Why would he waste anytime doing something that kept him away from his passion, when he had every ability to live it out?  It’s a question I ask myself often.

So here I am Melbourne!  Now let’s get sloppy!!!

A Teeth Cleaning To Remember

I enter the office ten minutes late, and walk up to the counter to let the receptionist know I’m there.  

“Hi, I have a dentist appointment for ten”

“Leigh?”

“Yep.”

“Perfect, just take a seat they’ll be ready for you in a couple minutes.”

See, that’s why I don’t worry about being late for appointments anymore.  I’ve yet to arrive at an appointment where they’re ready to commence at the scheduled time, and I hate waiting.  I usually spend my time boning up on current events from six months ago.  On a side note, did you hear about that whole Gulf oil spill thing? Bummer for sure.  

“Leigh?”

“Yes?”

“We’re ready for you now.  If you just want to follow me to the back we’ll get started.”

I walk down the same hall I’ve been walking down since I was capable of it.  Nothing’s changed over the years and I find it oddly comforting.  In the turmoil that is my life I’m somehow able to rely on the stability of my dental care. Wow, I think I just said something REALLY deep.  Write that down.  Actually, copy and paste that bad boy and you’ll be ready to go.  

So I sit in the comfortably worn chair, put on the tasteful wrap around sunglasses and lie back getting ready quick cleaning.

“So it looks like it’s been a little over a year since we last saw you.  Just in for a cleaning and check up?”

“Yep.”

“Excellent, now open wide so I can have a look.”

I open my mouth as she takes a small mirror and tours is scenery inside.

“Everything looks good, but you have a little tartar build up so a cleaning’s definitely in order.” 

She goes over to her table of what looks torture instruments.  Okay, yes I like spy movies and TV shows but I’m weak.  I will crumble before you even threaten to pull out my finger nails.  Somehow I remain calm, I’ve done this all before and I’ve never had a cavity.  Which means is that I’ve never had any reason to distrust or hate... well except for that time when I was five where I puked because of the X-ray... but I digress.  She pulls out a metal pick.

“This is a vibrating metal pick it’ll remove the tartar.”

“Okay”

The cleaning begins and as she continues on it reminds me of a colouring book.  All she has to do is stay in the

“FUCK”

“Oops, (chuckles) sorry about that looks like I got some gum.”

Oops?  You just jabbed a vibrating pick into my sensitive gum tissue.  Ha ha ha, I can’t stop laughing myself. DAMNIT AGAIN!  To be honest I don’t even know where her concentration is being pulled to.  Maybe she’s getting lost in the music?  Nope it definitely can’t be that considering the music here consists of some weird instrumental version of theme songs.  

This continues on for what feels like five hours in but reality was about ten minutes.  When she finishes I look over at her table and see a blood covered tissue.  Another day another bloody tissue filled garbage can.  Whatever pays the bills.

I continue on to the uneventful check up, finding out once again that I’m cavity free.  Another year of freedom.

Conclusion:  I will now be conducting in-depth interviews with all future dental hygienists.  I’ve put together an extensive program which includes some pretty tough hand eye coordination exams.  Get ready for some of the toughest connect the dots you’ve ever seen, and some colouring books that are in need of some serious colouring.  Don’t worry I don’t judge on colours used, but bonus points will be given for pleasing combinations.

Updates

The brown grass is startling to me.  I long for the day when the new grass has pushed aside the dead, the new leaves unfurl, signaling the season of beginnings.  Summer always represents new beginnings, at least for me.  Everything is light and care free as sunshine and freedom put me in a perpetually happy state.  I take in the world around me with the delight of a child, daring to believe the unbelievable.

September rolls around and whatever lesson I’m to learn that year arises in my life.  I’ll spend the next five - eight months discovering its meaning in relation to me, and slowly implementing this knowledge.  My favorite thing about these learning processes is that I’m slowly starting to figure out who I am. What draws me to these decisions, why do I think the way I do, why am I drawn to the people in my life?  Do they have a common dominator, or do each of their individual personalities connect with me because I’m nothing but a massive mound of personality facets and each one is satisfied by certain individuals who can, in turn, stand my own quirkiness?  These questions constantly bombard my psyche and steal my sleep as they bounce around my head.

As school has come to an end for the year, I’ve finally made some life changing decisions.  I’m extremely excited about them.  My twenty-second birthday lurks around the corner, and with it the excitement of more grey and life changes.  

So come on summer, I’m ready for you. As for September, I’m excited to see you again too, because I’m ready for the next part of my story.

Through The Looking Glass

The end of the school year is approaching quickly, and with it the shit load of projects and final exams that attempt to evaluate what we’ve gleaned from the class.  I’ve always been a procrastinator, so I tend to freak out the day before the project is due.  This happened recently, in my Rhetorical Communications class.  I had to write a five minute speech on any topic I wanted, with the intent to win the audience over to my perspective. 

As I came up with extensive reasons to put off this task, my prime working hours came into effect at 2AM on the day of my deadline.  I love public speaking so I knew I wouldn’t need to rehearse, mostly it came down to picking a topic.  I imagine your curiosity is getting the better of you right now.  What subject did I turn my considerable intellect on?  Egypt?  Possibly the issues involved with the US bombing Libya? Sadly no, but I think I chose a topic that plagues us a little closer to home: Facebook Relationship Statuses.

Now my issue is not concerned with the listing of relationships, although it seems a bit excessive that you want every one of your three hundred plus ‘friends’ to know you have that special someone in your life.  It’s the status updates that stem from relationships.  Everyone has someone on their Facebook who’s guilty of this, hell we’ve all probably thrown out a little too much information, but there are people who consistently spew this written diarrhea all over our Newsfeeds.  We don’t need to know about the breakup competition they’ve entered, or that they now enjoy ‘random play’.  Guess what we REALLY don’t care about?  That’s ‘it’s complicated’ with so and so.  

The next issue I raised against relationship information was the kissing profile picture.  These picture combined with the claims of true love have me wondering who they’re trying to convince?  Are the doubts and fears about the relationship only kept at bay in direct relation to their online sappiness?  I don’t have any answers to these questions, yet I implored my class to take a stand against this behavior.  In my opinion, if you’re willing to put this information on a public site, then you should be prepared for the laughter that might follow at your expense.  

My roommate from residence last year L and I write (although we haven’t had a chance to in a while, the whole other side of the country thing) a blog.  A boy in our residence had taken a huge shit on all of our Newsfeeds, which led L to writing this article Facebook Relationships for Dummies. I used this to demonstrate the extremes of pointless relationship information.  

My speech went really well, and one of my classmates encouraged me to post it on my profile.  I appreciated his support, but it was written as more of a joke.  Plus, it allowed me to take a couple jabs without anyone knowing or understanding their real meaning.  That way no one gets hurt and I release some aggression.  

Writing the speech was slightly therapeutic, and it got me thinking about how much information we share.  I’m definitely guilty of writing stupid statuses that I think are entertaining, and most of my profile pictures are of me doing stupid faces that I think are funny.  I imagine it leaves others with the impression that I may be slow.  I don’t think I’m better than anyone, actually the truth is closer to a feeling of complete worthlessness, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve stopped caring.  

There is something that leaves me shaking with regret the next morning. In the first moments of consciousness I feel the pit of memories sink into my stomach as I remember the previous night.  Alcohol combined with my Facebook account where I used the message button to metaphorically throw up my emotions on the screen before me.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.  That’s all I can think when I finally get the courage to reread what I wrote.  

I’ve always worried that I experience emotions too strongly, so I’m constantly suppressing them.  I’ve gotten pretty good at this, and when I’m struggling with my emotions sober, alcohol is no friend of mine.  Some girls find alcohol a problem because it lowers their inhibitions and adds to their promiscuity.  I’ve never had that problem, mine is that I lose control of my emotions and release the wall of built up bullshit that I’ve been holding in.  Shit that no one needs to know or hear.

I had one of these nights yesterday, and as I write this blog entry I’m laughing at myself wishing someone would just look at me and confirm what I know to be true: what an idiot I am.  I’m looking for a validation that I’ll never receive, and even as I write this sentence I realize how pretentious it is to assume that anyone would even want to read this.  Which brings me back to the topic of my speech.  I started to think about the people who publish what I might consider pointless information, and I wonder if we all subjects of our fears and desires?  Have we taken these Social Networking sites and used them as an attempt to create a window into our souls?  Can you see beneath the bullshit and find the real person that’s underneath?  I’m going to start trying.

Liquidation Sale!!! All Gallbladders Must GO!!!!!

Health, who the hell can ever predict when it’s gonna laugh in your face and put you in the hospital?  Well, I had the pleasure this week, when some strong abdominal pain placed me in the emergency waiting room.  As I looked around I realized it was fairly empty ensuring that I should see a doctor within the next eight hours or so.  Beside me, C sits reassuring me that everything’s going to be okay, and to prove this point she takes an old issue of Cosmopolitan and starts quizzing me to find out if I really am a sex goddess.

“You want to leave the party so you and your MAN can get it on.  How do you make your point clear?  Do you A) tell him to guess if you’re wearing panties or not, and if he’s ready to find out? B) Hug him really tight and hope he gets the message, or C) straddle his legs and tell him he better get ready for the best ride of his life?”

She looks at me, awaiting my prompt answer.  I notice two older gentlemen listening to our conversation looking slightly scandalized by our current topic.  I smile before I look back at her.

“Oh boy, this is such a tough choice.  Well, obviously C is an excellent option, yet I love the mystery of A.  Hmm... I think I’ll lock in A as my final answer...”

The two old men look shocked as I imagine they’re picturing their own granddaughters having this conversation.  Oh my, the youth of today.  I don’t really feel we’re so different, except now everyone wants to talk about it.  I recently read Look Me in the Eyes by John Elder Robison. Mr. Robison wrote a chapter for the new paperback version where he explains that he ‘cleaned up the book’ because he never intended it for tweens and teenagers.  Yet they were reading it, so he decided to alter certain passages, not because he thought they weren’t swearing, but because he wanted every kid he met to have a better life than him, to in a way, be better.  This made complete sense to me.  My father has done questionable things in his life, and he certainly swears, yet he rips me a new asshole when I try these things.  My father has never been one to express his emotions, and I’ve never heard him say he loves me.  How do I know?  Well, he cares when I swear.   

My pain is overtaking my ability to think clearly.  I feel as if someone is kicking my back with steel toe boots and my stomach is on fire.  The nausea is about to win the battle we’ve been engaged in for the last five hours.  I make my way over to the bathroom, quickly ripping the elastic off my wrist, throwing my hair back in a rush.  The bursts of pain are keeping time with my heart, creating a painful harmony.  My whole body shakes from the strength of my stomach evacuating it’s contents.  

I walk back out to the waiting room in time to hear my name being called.  Grabbing my books, I slowly make my way down the hall to the intake area.  The nurse takes me into a room and begins to ask me the first round of questions I will be continually be asked throughout my stay.  

“Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?  There isn’t ANY possible chance you could be pregnant?  When was you’re last period?”

“Now.”

“Is it a normal period, flow and such?”

“Yes, I think so...”

I can tell you that it is incredibly annoying to be a female when entering the emergency room, because it seems that the first thought is that every women is pregnant.  The next is that she’s a dirty liar.  The worst part about getting excessively asked if you’re pregnant is that you start thinking about those programs where the women don’t know they’re pregnant.  You start freaking out that YOU could be one of those women.  The fear sets in, because now not only am I in pain, but I’m scared shitless that some little invader is taking over my womb and stealing my nutrients.  After my initial examination I returned to C sitting in the waiting room and I inform her about my fears.

“What if I’m pregnant?”

“Leigh don’t be stupid, you’re not pregnant.”

“What if I am?  What if I’m one of those women who never knows it? Oh my god C scrape it out! SCRAPE IT OUT!”

C laughs at my antics and like any good friend she can tell that I’m slightly concerned.  So of course she begins to play on these unfounded fears.  I don’t know what I’d do without friends like this, because if you can’t laugh about it, what the fuck can you do?

I have heart problems in my family, my grandfather died when he was fifty-four years old from a heart attack, so they decide to order blood work, trace my heart and get a urine sample.  At the mention of blood work I started to rethink this whole ‘getting relief for pain’ thing.  I hate needles.  It might go back to the time when my grandpa froze my ears by shoving a needle up them before piercing them.  It may be attributed to my brother tackling me to the floor, keeping my eyes peeled open to watch the scene from Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman gets stabbed in the heart with adrenaline, all the while pinching me and laughing manically.  Even now, writing about these special memories brings tears of joy to my eyes, but the point I’m trying to make is that I hate needles.

“Sorry did you say blood work?”

“Yes, we’re going to need to get it so by the time the doctor sees you, the results will be back from the lab.”

“Um ya know what... I think I’m feeling bet-AHHH-ter.”

“You’re getting the blood work”

I can see her exasperated face.  I close my eyes as she wraps the elastic band around my arm and exclaims that I have great big veins and that I shouldn’t worry.  As she pokes the needle into my arm I wiggle my toes and think about the sketch I’d been apart of, yet never performed.  The main idea of it was that a family did heroin together on Christmas.  It was a humorous sketch but it became more so for me right now as I remembered the slightly nauseous feeling I got when pretending to put the fake needle into my arm.  Heroin, I hate to say it, but I have a feeling we’re never going to be great friends.

After the rest of the tests I return to the waiting room and read as the clock slowly continues on.  Tik Tok Ke$ha, tic fucking tok.  C is starting to fall asleep beside me and I tell her to go home and get some sleep because she has work in the morning.  She insists she’s fine for a while, but finally she submits and tells me to call her if I need her.  As I sit here alone I start to wonder if I might be sick.  I mean really sick.  What will I tell my family?  What does this mean for me?  I’m twenty-one, for god sake I haven’t even begun to live yet, can it really to come to an early end?

Finally they call my name and I return to the intake area with my fears sitting firmly at the edge of my consciousness.  The doctor is ready to see me and asks me the same array of questions from earlier in the evening.  He examines my abdominal and pushes on my right side just under my rib cage.  I scream.

“Hmm... do you drink a lot Leigh?”

“Umm, I wouldn’t say a lot, but I’ve been known to have a beverage from time to time...”

“Well, excessive drinking can cause the pancreas to become inflamed and that might be causing the pain.  I’m just going to check your blood work.”

Shit.  I went out last Friday and got blackout drunk.  To be honest, I’ve instated a don’t ask don’t tell policy concerning that night.  Not because of anything serious, but I’ve always felt sometimes it’s better just not to know.  Damn-it I bet they can see that from my tests, I must look like the biggest alcoholic.  Whatever I’m twenty-one, shit happens.  Hopefully.

He comes back and does a quick ultrasound and tells me I’ll need to come back in the morning for an extensive abdominal ultrasound.  Until then he was going to prescribe me some Percacet which is like Tylenol with Morphine.  Finally the good drugs!  The nurse tells me that I’m scheduled to come back at 7:45AM and that I can expect to be here for a while.  She gives me papers to take with me the next day, and on it I see a question.  Possibly Binary Colic, whatever the fuck that means.

I get home and crawl into my bed after taking the drugs.  I huddle into a ball with the covers pulled over my head.  I’m being young and sentimental right now but I’m cuddling the shit out of my childhood blanket.  It makes me feel better.  I clench my teeth as I feel the high from the drugs begin to hit my brain and I set my alarm...

I wake up to the incessant beeping coming from my phone.  

“7:00AM you’ve got to be shitting me.  Ahh fuck.”

I get out of bed and collect the three books I’ve decided to take with me.  I read pretty fast and I know I’m going to be there for a while.  Paul Auster, let’s do some detective work.  Maybe by lunch I’ll get into Naked Lunch.  If there’s a silver lining in this situation it’s that I have an excuse to do nothing but read today.

I get to the hospital and check in at the front desk.  It’s early and no one is waiting so I go right in.  They lead me into a changing area were I’m so lucky to be given my very own backless gown.  After slipping the worn fabric onto my shivering skin, I make my way into the other room.  

The technician begins my exam.  I turn my head to see the screen and as she goes over my pelvic region I release a sigh of relief at the blankness staring back at me.  See, I feel like saying, I’m not pregnant!  I keep this victory to myself and wait for this sticky examination to end.  She gets the radiologist to come and look at her findings.  

“So Leigh, I see you’ve been having some abdominal pain.”

“You betcha”

“Well have you been experiencing any nausea?”

“Absolutely, I mean what would abdominal pain be without a little nausea?”

He laughs at my tacky joke and pauses as he seems to have found something.

“Ahh if that’s air it should go away in a second.  If not, we’ve found it.  Hmmm yep there it is.”

He begins to wipe my stomach with a towel.

“Well Leigh, the good news is we know what you have, the bad news is that you have a gallstone.”

He waves goodbye to me and the technician gives me another towel and tells me I’ll need it, because this gel gets everywhere especially places you don’t anticipate.  I want so badly to make the joke that sits on the silver platter before me.  Instead I settle for mentally putting it in the back of my mind so I can share it with L and R later.  They’ll appreciate the childish tone of these jokes.  

After I change, I get sent back to emergency to see another doctor.  By the time I get to there he’s reviewed my chart, and tells me that I’m looking at surgery.  SURGERY, as in someone’s cutting me open and TAKING AN ORGAN OUT OF MY BODY.  This cannot be happening to me.  I mean I know it’s a storage facility for the bile my liver produces to digest fat but frankly, I assume it’s there for a reason!  Surgery, I hate needles yet I’m supposed to let someone cut into me? This cannot be happening.

I get placed in the original intake room I was in the prior night, awaiting my consolation with the surgeons.  I start to rationalize what I’ve been told, I can’t imagine I’ll need surgery.  They probably just told me that as a worst case scenario.  This line of thought comforts me.  I call my Dad and he confirms my logic is solid.  Can’t we laser this bitch out?  

The resident surgeons come and examine me.  They ask me the standard questions that every other person in this hospital has asked me.  Why do they even make those charts?  

“So you’re definitely going to need surgery.  You have a couple options, this is serve enough that we can admit you now and hopefully get you in with the next five days.  Your other option is to post pone it, and set the date for your surgery.  The only risk with the second option is that you could possibly get another attack waiting for your surgery.”

“What would you recommend”

“Well, we happen to have a crazy wait list for surgeries right now.  There’s about five or six ahead of you for the surgery and you’d be stuck here for five days.”

“Ok, so what are the complications of removing my gallbladder, doesn’t it release bile and help digest fat, while regulating my pH levels in my small intestine?  Isn’t it kind of important that I have that?”

“Are you a Bio major”

“No, I just remember High School Biology.”

“Well that’s true but it’s really a storage for the bile your liver makes, in a couple weeks your liver will adjust to it no longer being there.  It’s a very common procedure, we make four incisions, cut it out and pull it out through the incision in your belly button.”

“Hmm ok... well... ok”

“We’ll give you some time to think about your options”

I’m surprised how calm I am.  It doesn’t feel real, that must be why.  I feel as if I’ve taken a step back from my body and I’m watching myself in a movie.  I mean I know this is common.  I understand it’s an easy surgery.  What I don’t like is the whole cutting me open and pulling an organ out of my body.  I like my bile storage facility otherwise known as my gallbladder.  Maybe if I post pone it I’ll be able to research some options to save it.

So that’s what I ended up doing.  I’m currently booked to meet with a surgeon to talk about my surgery.  At this point, I’ve researched a procedure call Lithotripter which is a procedure that sends acoustic pulses to break up the gallstone.  It’s ideal for me because I have a single gallstone that is less than 2cm .  Fingers crossed!

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

Haunt Me

I see him standing in the corner shrinking away from human contact.  I sigh and shake my head as I realize it’s going to happen again.  He’s supposed to spend the night with my friends and I, but when he acts like this I know it’s not going to be an option.  He’ll only sit and mope the whole night away as each of my friends takes me aside throughout the evening and asks me what I see in him.  In his defense, at least he showed up this time.   

This had been happening for the past five months, usually after we spent a really great night together when he’d actually shared details about his life with me.  Considering the walls he’d built around himself, getting any details about his life was an accomplishment to be sure.  After this night I could usually expect some sort of sub-conscience punishment from him indicating to me that he wanted me to stop caring.  Well, it wasn’t going to happen, I can get through these tests until he’s willing to trust me.  I see something in him, I can’t put my finger on it but I know it’s there.

As I get nearer to him he looks up at me and smiles.  I debate punching myself because I’m nothing but the stereotypical girls that I despise, because I swear for just a second, my heart stopped.

“Hey Sweetheart”

“Sweetheart?  That’s the best you got, what am I five years old and have a fever?” I’ve never really been good with endearments. 

“What, no I only say that to girls who I really li- whatever”  He looks past me as he says this.  In all honesty, he never really looks me in the eye, or anyone else for that matter.

“So you came!  How was your set?  And by the way you could have brought your friends to the party!”

“Ya I told them about it, they called it your pajama party” He laughs “but you don’t want those guys here, really they're crazy.”

Damn-it.  I know this has something to do with my age, he doesn’t want them to meet me.  He's constantly brining our eight year age gap to my attention.  A couple weeks before we’d gone to the movies and he’d joked about getting me a child’s ticket and a senior for himself.  The joke was funny, if it hadn’t contained a deeper meaning of his unhappiness of that fact.  It was blatant with every movement he made.  I’d never censored myself before, but now I found myself hating my youth.  I paused to think everything through before I spoke, in fear that I might somehow reveal my age again.  I try so hard to be what he wants.

“Hey have you thought anymore about just telling everyone at comedy?  I mean what’s the point of hiding it now.”

His eyes finally rest upon mine.  This isn’t good.  The landscape changes, colours meld into one another and I feel as if I’ve somehow ended up in a painting.  I start to feel dizzy and I close my eyes.  This can’t be real I tell myself, so I pinch my arm and it’s painful.

I know this can’t be real and as I slowly open my eyes again I can see the colours have stopped.  I seem to be in a dark bedroom of sorts, and then I remember this is his room.  I must have been sleep walking and just woken up; it’s the only explanation that makes sense to me right now.   I turn towards the bed and I can see something isn’t right.  There already seems to be two people in the bed engaged in a cuddle.  This can’t be happening, because I’m standing here yet I can see his hand is caressing another form.  Then I see her face and my world shatters.  As I fall into the black abyss I look at his face.  He’s smiling at me, just like he used to.  As he turns the form over and begins to mount her, he looks at me.

“Do you regret it now?”

As I open my eyes and realize I’m in my own room as I whisper

“Yes, every minute”

Stories

I’m currently on my reading week from school.  I decided to flee the cold weather of Calgary and visit my father and brother in Victoria.  Alas, the most snow, and the coldest temperatures they’ve had all year made an appearance during my visit.  Luckily, I had the chance to stumble around Victoria yesterday, and I ended up in a fantastic bookstore by the name of Monroe's.  I love book stores.  I love the smell, the feel and the weight of books.  I love discovering new writers.  I love getting lost in the story, literally losing myself with the characters.  Words are incredibly powerful and when someone is a gifted writer I feel as if my own life is pale in comparison, as if my life is the story and they story is now reality.  After these books I feel altered, sometimes taking parts of the character into my own life, melding their speech with my own.

Something needs to be said for biographies.  There’s something so raw and untamed about listening to another’s conquests.  Sharing in ones victories, sorrows and purgatory experiences connects them with me, and reaffirms my own excitement in life.  Here before me sits a person who’s lived to tell the tale.  Although the details may be slightly embellished, this is a true story.  I guarantee you that if you sit down with anyone and ask about their life you’ll discover something interesting.  Accomplishments you wish you’d thought of, let alone completed.  Pain that makes you thankful that you’ve been spared such wrath.  Tales of the human plight are so invigorating to me because I’m comforted in the fact that I’m not alone in my struggles.  Loneliness is an emotion everyone has experienced at one time or another, and this emotion tends to isolate me from the world.  These stories bring me back to reality.

My favorite part of any story is the reckless choices, whether they worked out or not.  I like to believe I live my life according to my rules but when I honestly exam my motives, I’ve stopped myself due to the fear of judgement.  Whether that judgement came from my peers or my family, it still made an impact.  So why can’t I let go and just jump?  I imagine it’s connected to the concern for my friends and family.  Growing up I’ve been lectured on my tendency to be driven to the point of obsessiveness.  My family told me that to live a truly full life you need to have many interests that you pursue at the same time, juggling them to make them fit together, whereas I take all my eggs and put them in one basket.  As an example my dad would talk about professional athletes and how hard many people work towards becoming one, when statistically they will never achieve their goal.  I’m twenty-one now and I know an Olympic athlete.  When I was younger we swam together in the same swim club.  She was definitely obsessively driven towards her goal of becoming an Olympic swimmer for Canada and she accomplished this goal by swimming in the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.  

Fear, it consumes our daily lives.  Fear of what others think, fear of repeating mistakes, of never learning.  Fear of the unknown.  It’s strange the power fear has on our lives and the compromises we give it to make it complacent.  Not everyone is happy experiencing a small amount of satisfaction from partaking in many things at once.  If that’s true then maybe I’m meant to sink fully into my own nature and pursue my dreams obsessively in the hopes to master my craft.  A couple years ago I asked my close friends to describe me in one word; they all said intense.  Every one of them told me at different times that when choosing out of the entire English language, the word that described me was intense.  Intense is an extreme adjective, a word fitting of an extreme personality.  I don’t know how I feel about being intense, I certainly like to believe I’m an easygoing person, but even I have to admit I never let myself get walked on.  I speak my mind, which is a possibly a positive, most definitely a negative at times.  If I intend to grow as a person, than I feel like it’s time to start recognizing these facts.

Life so far has been nothing but a constant learning experience.  I expect it will only continue to be a learning experience, and when it stops being a learning experience I’ll be dead.  So until then I’ll have to make some interesting choices.  I don’t know if I truly have the ability or the talent to achieve my dreams.  Perhaps my fear will consume me and I’ll settle for typical life.  Who knows, all I can hope for is an interesting story.

The Ending

I sit here staring out the windows of my mothers’ twelfth floor apartment, pondering my latest pothole in this seemingly endless road.  I have failed, yet again, to maintain someone’s interest in me for more than six months.  I suspect he’s already moved on, I can’t imagine I meant much to him.

I love pursuing stand-up comedy but I need to take time away because seeing my ex hurts.  Hearing his comments tears me apart and sends me diving into a two six of vodka.  I hate that he has this power to with one look, all the while seemingly oblivious to my existence, gut me like a fish. It entertains me that only a few short weeks ago he confided his thoughts and desires in me.  I’m at a loss, every time I feel like I have something truly solid it turns into sand slipping through my fingers as I frantically try to grasp it.  I feel so helpless, if I really deserved good things I’d have been prepared for this, armed with a blow torch, turning the sand into glass.  I don’t like losing people from my life.  Correction, I don’t like losing people I love from my life.

I start wondering about the choices I’ve made that have brought me to this point.  The impulse to make this relationship work is no different then the one that led us to begin it.  What changed?  Did lust overpowered us and hide the realities of our situation, only to allow them to catch up with us later?  We both view ourselves as people who strive past the confinements of societal views.  Despite that, we let the very people we don’t allow to “influence” us effect our choices, stealing the spotlight away from the only two people who should be basking in its’ warm embrace.  So are we hypocrites?  Or, are we just a couple of fools still too optimistic to view the reality of our situation.  Age is a factor.  Time for each other is a factor.  Life experience is a factor.  Those three tiny factors are the very reason two people who care for each other can’t continue down the same path.  

Love, it’s an interesting idea.  I love him now.  Eventually I will have loved him, and when that happens I will be the only one who ever knew or cared about that fact.  There are so many cliches involving love, my personal favorite being “it’s better to love and have lost, then never to have loved at all.”  Statistically speaking, with my generation it’s more likely that your relationship will end then succeed.  So where does that leave you on the loved and lost part?  Is the continued ending of love worth of the pain involved with having loved them?  I haven’t decided yet.

I’m sure there are things I’m naive about right now, but I know I will move on.  I don’t hold on to the hope that we will get back together because ‘he’s the only one for me’.  It’s a great movie premise for the romantic in all of us, but I just can’t believe that.  I believe every relationship (including our friendships) teach us the lessons we need to learn so we can discover who we are.  So the question I want to answer is what did I learn?  I’m unsure if I’ll ever know all the ways being with him has affected me, but I’ve taken a few important lessons.  The first is that little things can be the end of relationships.  In fact, I think that it’s the little things that always end relationships.  I’ve also learned that you can break up on the best terms possible, but you still die inside when you see that person.  You can’t help but assume the worst from every action they do from that point forth.  It always seems my emotions can blind me and steal my logic.  Oh how I lament my irrationality.

What infuriates me is when people tell me that he wasn’t the ‘one’ and that person is still out there looking for me and when I meet him I’ll just ‘know’.  I feel everyone who watches these Disney movies should be made to watch a disclaimer informing the viewer that the movie they’re about to watch is a work of fiction.  As far as I can tell this idea of ‘happily ever after’ is one of the biggest lies we’ve spread.  I do believe that people can succeed in staying together, I just believe it takes an incredible amount of work and communication from BOTH people.  Nothing worth while in my life has come easily, so I assume this corresponds to the realm of relationships as well.  

Anger has no place in my feelings following my break up, hurt, longing, and a sense of being inadequate definitely do.  Are they reliable feelings?  I suspect not, because in reality even though I love him and wanted my future to continue onwards with him. I have a dream.  I want to achieve that dream.  Ironically, I shared the same dream with him, but from what I’ve gathered from the relationships I’ve been in, and from the ones I’ve had the ability to view with an outsiders perspective, one person in the relationship always sacrifices for the other.  I can’t give my dream up.  Neither can he, and he’s more prepared to deal with the fact that to accomplish your dreams you must sacrifice.  Truly sacrifice, in the hopes that you will achieve that seemingly impossible desire.

So here I sit, the night has swallowed the city and I look upon it and I wonder how many of the people driving past have really made the sacrifice to achieve their greatest desires.  How many people strove only to give that dream up for another challenge.  Does it really fulfill them or do they regret and resent these choices?  I don’t know, I’ll never know, the only thing I’m actually certain of is that I won’t be satisfied in life until I do.  I’ve been losing sight of that recently.  Let this be my constant reminder.